Europe Trip - Day 0/1 (10-Sept-2012 & 11-Sept-2012)

Day 0 - Bangalore

The Day had finally arrived!! After months of planning, packing, shopping, browsing, buying passes and tickets online and other preparation, the day of our departure was here. We were all set to take the BIA shuttle to the airport to be in time for our flight to Paris at 1:40 AM. As my wife waited with the luggage at the bus stop, I dashed back after dropping off our car home. The bus had arrived by then. The conductor asked my wife to board the bus and he was in a hurry to start off. A few frantic calls later, the bus that had already left stopped over to pick me up at a nearby place. All went smooth and we boarded the flight and almost slept through the long ( 10 hours ) journey.

Ready to fly!!

Day 1 - Paris, France

We landed in Paris and were dropped off at our hotel by the shared shuttle (Super shuttle, booked online before the journey) that transports upto 8 people. It was gloomy and raining!! Rain has accompanied us during our courtship, wedding, honeymoon and several other occasions.

Hotel Passy Eiffel did a great job of checking us in early and receiving the Paris pass that we had ordered online. After freshening up, we were ready to explore, come rain or storm!

Our first intention was to visit Eiffel Tower. Our efforts to get entry tickets online didn’t materialize. For more than a month the online ticket sales were stopped due to a technical snag in one of the elevators of Eiffel. So we were mentally prepared to brave the long queue that was anticipated to purchase entry tickets.

Since our hotel was a stone’s throw from Eiffel tower we could easily reach it by foot. Armed with 2 umbrellas, a bottle of water and nothing else, we set out. By now the drizzle had transformed into an annoying rain. Despite the steady rain we chose to take to the queue to purchase entry tickets. From 1pm to 2.15 pm our queue moved just about 100mts to enter the ticketing window. 28 Euros lighter in our pockets, we moved to the baggage checking area and after x-ray of whatever little we were carrying, we finally headed to the elevator. It was just about 2.45pm.

When the lift finally arrived, I was pretty excited. I was fascinated at first glance of the lift. As the lower portion of the tower is tilted, the lift for a small section is pulled across a gradient before taking a straight path up. I found that very fascinating and unique.

Second Floor

The lift landed on the second floor and by then the rain was pelting down. The visibility was ranging across low to poor to none in some directions. I was mainly looking for vantage points to Seine River, Invalides , Arc de Triumph and Montapransse tower. We could see all of it but it was like looking at them out of focus. It was very hazy. I made some futile attempts to capture these views. The rain and the cold wind made us shiver. The occasional wind gust would test the tensile strength of the rods in our umbrella. We went around the second floor to see what best we could capture in our camera. Of course our eyes did capture the beauty of the Invalides, Arc de triumph etc and framed in the mind for posterity. 

Gloomy view of the city

Standing tall ?

After a good 45 mins at the second floor we proceeded to the summit. After a short ride on the 2nd lift and a brief shot of vertigo, we were at the summit!! We first explored the closed section of the summit.  I was not too fascinated with anything in there except for the old photographs of Gustav Eiffel at work, his apartment and the first radio transmitter from the top of the Eiffel. We headed out to the open area of the summit. Now this is where we really felt the height. Once again more tests on our umbrellas were performed. By now (in accordance with Murphy law obviously) the haze had cleared up and we could see the city clearly now. But we had already been exposed to the rain so much that we were shivering. The gusts of wind added to it. We still went around and took a few pictures before deciding finally to head out. 

At the summit

We have all seen pictures of how Eiffel looks on a bright sunny day. But I think a dull grey gloomy tower was a unique experience for us. There was something romantic about it.

Gloomy and gray tower

Yummy!!

We reached down and were yearning for some caffeine. We walked across the tower to a small shop. Our gastronomy experiments started with Crepe. We ordered crepes with Nutella, strawberry and banana. The very moment we bit into a piece of the crepe we felt we were slowly lifted to the second floor of the tower and by the time we were into the strawberry and banana part of the crepe we were almost reaching the top of the tower. We topped it off with a coffee to bring the temperatures to normal and headed back to the hotel.

We returned to our room with wet clothes, bags and shoes. The dampness had permeated everywhere except our spirits. After a short nap we were up again to make the next dash. This time it was for the river cruise on the serene Seine.

We slipped into more warm clothes this time as we knew that we wanted to cruise in the night. We got ready to leave around 7 pm and we were thinking it is already late for the night cruise. We were in for a surprise once we got out of the hotel. The sun was shining majestically. It felt as if it was now late afternoon with a clear blue sky and plenty of sunshine. As we walked up towards Eiffel again we felt that we were seeing it for the first time. It looked totally different. The tinge of grey was gone and it looked rusty with the sun basking on it.

Evening sun shining on the tower

Lights taking effect

Only at this point it dawned on us that  European summers have long days. So we had to kill a lot of time before we could go for the night cruise. We hung around Eiffel as the day drew to a close.

Finally darkness fell and the lights of the Eiffel tower slowly took effect.

We started walking towards the cruise start point. By this time we were hungry and wanted to take a quick bite. We finally landed in the cruise start point ( Bateaux Mouches ) around 9 We found ourselves a spot on the upper deck with a good vantage point. The cruise took us through an innumerable number of bridges built over the river. The cruise lasted for a good hour and half and we got to see the city of lights with all major landmarks illuninated.

From the cruise

Hourly glitter

When we got back to the pier we were totally exhausted and started our long walk back to the room. On our way we walked by the Eiffel once again. Its light had taken full effect and was majestically glistening. And then in a blink, specks of blue light started to glitter throughout the tower. We had heard that the tower glitters every hour after 9pm. It looked like the Eiffel tower was fully draped in glittering serial lights. We checked our watches and it was just about 10pm. We stood by the river bank and took pictures and videos of the spectacle. It would turn out to be one of the 3 times we saw the tower twinkle.

We finally dragged ourselves back to our room and sank into our beds. A grueling day had come to an end. 17 more such days were to follow.

-- Yes & Why